Durable Goals

Durable Goals helps AI agents keep working toward the same goal across long conversations, restarts, and multiple agent threads.

Instead of relying on chat history, it stores the goal, changes to the goal, evidence, and completion rules in the repository. A small DAG can also expose several independent goals so different threads can safely pick up different work.

It does not run agents or choose models. It gives Codex, Claude Code, local scripts, or another harness a shared answer to three questions:

• What is the current goal?
• What work is ready next?
• What evidence proves the goal is complete?

Install

Requires Python 3.11 or newer and has no runtime dependencies.

uv tool install durable-goals

Or install it with pip:

python -m pip install durable-goals

Then use the dgoal command anywhere:

dgoal --version
dgoal init goals/my-goal \
  --goal-id my-goal \
  --objective "Describe what needs to be finished."

Try the example

From a clone of this repository:

python -m pip install -e .

dgoal validate examples/model-refresh/gateway.json
dgoal status examples/model-refresh/gateway.json
dgoal resolve examples/model-refresh/gateway.json

The basic convention is simple: an agent reads the goal package's GOAL.md before acting. The repository remains the source of truth, even when the chat or process disappears.

What is included

• Persistent, versioned goal contracts
• Evidence-backed completion
• Append-only goal amendments and activation records
• DAG dependencies for multi-goal workflows
• Atomic claims so concurrent threads choose different ready goals
• A dependency-free Python CLI and test suite

Learn more

Agents and maintainers should read AGENTS.md for the full protocol, authority rules, CLI examples, and implementation scope.

• CLI reference
• Authoritative entry-point convention
• Distribution model
• Cross-agent compatibility

Status

This is an early 0.1 release intended for trusted repositories. SHA-256 checks protect integrity, but they do not authenticate authors. Use signed commits or another trusted transport when writers do not share the same trust boundary.

Licensed under the MIT License.